Michigan’s cybersecurity leadership bench runs deeper than a single industry. The women in this feature span consumer brands, automotive suppliers, healthcare systems, higher education, and large industrial enterprises, reflecting how central the state has become to cyber leadership in operationally complex environments. Some oversee security for global manufacturing footprints and product ecosystems, while others lead enterprise privacy, resilience, governance, and risk programs for major institutions that serve millions of customers, patients, students, or residents.
What ties them together is range. This is not just a list of traditional corporate CISOs. It is also a picture of how cybersecurity leadership in Michigan increasingly sits at the intersection of business strategy, digital transformation, product security, operational resilience, privacy, and board-level risk communication. Together, these leaders show why Michigan remains one of the most important states in the country for cybersecurity influence.
Afia Phillips — Chief Information Security Officer, Little Caesars Enterprises
Afia Phillips brings more than two decades of information security experience and now leads cybersecurity at one of Michigan’s most recognizable consumer brands. As Chief Information Security Officer at Little Caesars Enterprises, she oversees information security not only for the pizza business but also across a broader Ilitch-owned ecosystem that spans supply chain, food manufacturing, sports and entertainment, real estate, construction, and fundraising operations. That kind of scope makes her role especially notable in Michigan, where cyber leadership increasingly means protecting complex, multi-entity business environments rather than a single operating company.
Her background reflects both strategic and global depth. Before Little Caesars, Phillips held senior cybersecurity leadership roles within the Mercedes-Benz and Daimler Mobility environment, including Global Chief Information Security Officer and Regional CISO responsibilities. She has led governance, risk, compliance, architecture, engineering, security operations, and business continuity efforts while regularly reporting cybersecurity status and priorities to senior executives and board stakeholders. In her current role, she is positioned not just as a security operator, but as a strategic business partner helping shape enterprise goals, capital planning, and risk-based decision-making at the highest levels.
Juman Doleh-Alomary — Chief Information Security Officer, BorgWarner
Juman Doleh-Alomary represents the strength of Michigan’s automotive cybersecurity talent pipeline. As Chief Information Security Officer at BorgWarner, she is responsible for developing and implementing the company’s broader cybersecurity strategy, overseeing risk mitigation, compliance alignment, and security operations for a global automotive supplier. In a state where connected systems, industrial technology, and supply chain resilience matter deeply, her role sits at the center of one of Michigan’s most consequential sectors.
Her path to the role reflects a steady build through governance, audit, risk, and operational leadership. Before BorgWarner, Doleh-Alomary led cybersecurity-related governance, risk, and compliance work at Little Caesars and spent many years at Wayne State University directing IT audit and security program strategy. Earlier roles at Ford further grounded her in global IT risk management and supplier-related controls. That mix of audit rigor, enterprise policy experience, and real-world operational understanding makes her one of the most credible cybersecurity leaders in Michigan’s manufacturing and automotive landscape.
Laura Clark — Assistant Chief Information Officer, Michigan State University
Laura Clark is better framed as a senior Michigan cyber and technology leader than as a current CISO, but she absolutely belongs in a broader women-in-cyber feature for the state. She moved to Michigan State University in January 2026 as Assistant Chief Information Officer after an influential run in state government, where she held major leadership roles including Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer within Michigan’s Department of Technology, Management and Budget. Her work has directly affected infrastructure, policy, digital identity, and enterprise operations serving millions of residents.
Clark stands out because of the scale and public impact of her leadership. She managed a billion-dollar technology environment, oversaw large staff and application portfolios, and helped push major initiatives around authentication, digital government modernization, and statewide security strategy. She also maintained dual CIO and CSO responsibilities during part of her tenure, which speaks to her unusual range across both enterprise operations and cybersecurity oversight. Even though her current title is not CISO, she remains one of Michigan’s most significant cyber-linked executive leaders and a strong inclusion for a feature that looks beyond narrow title matching.
Janette Barretto — Head of Cybersecurity, Yazaki North America
Janette Barretto is one of the strongest examples in this feature of a leader whose influence goes well beyond title conventions. As Head of Cybersecurity at Yazaki North America, she leads cybersecurity strategy in a critical automotive-sector environment, and public community references in Michigan’s executive cyber ecosystem reinforce her standing as a major regional leader. That makes her a strong fit for this article even though her current title is not formally CISO.
What makes Barretto especially compelling is the way she helped build security capability rather than simply inherit it. At Yazaki, she was central to establishing and scaling security governance across the Americas and Europe, aligning those efforts with broader enterprise strategy while also advancing vulnerability management, security awareness, cloud security, incident management, and regulatory readiness. Her role in the Detroit CISO community and CyberRisk Collaborative also signals peer recognition. In Michigan, where automotive cybersecurity is increasingly tied to business continuity, quality standards, and supplier trust, she represents the kind of practical executive leadership that shapes the field from within.
Maria Haight — Global Information Security Officer, Joyson Safety Systems
Maria Haight brings one of the most cross-functional executive backgrounds in this Michigan group. As Global Information Security Officer at Joyson Safety Systems, she now leads security for a major automotive safety supplier in one of the country’s most strategically important manufacturing ecosystems. Her background stands out because it combines security leadership with prior executive roles spanning CIO, COO, and chief operations and technology responsibilities across manufacturing, financial services, telecom, and consumer-facing technology environments.
That breadth shows up in the substance of her work. Before Joyson, Haight held combined COO, CIO, and CISO-style leadership roles at organizations including TGI Direct and Kellogg Community Credit Union, where she managed security audits, penetration testing, disaster recovery exercises, phishing programs, policy updates, and broader operational modernization. Earlier in her career, she led major global digital, CRM, loyalty, and e-commerce technology initiatives at Kellogg. She is a strong addition to this feature because she represents a type of cyber leader increasingly important in Michigan: someone who understands security not as an isolated function, but as part of a wider operational, governance, and transformation agenda.
Christy Wheaton — VP, System, Chief Information Privacy and Security Officer, Henry Ford Health
Christy Wheaton is one of the strongest cybersecurity and privacy executives in Michigan’s healthcare sector. At Henry Ford Health, she serves as VP, System, Chief Information Privacy and Security Officer, and IT Risk leader, overseeing security and privacy for one of the state’s most significant health systems. Her role is especially important because healthcare cybersecurity demands far more than technical defense alone. It requires coordination across privacy, patient data protection, enterprise risk, operations, and resilience in environments where disruption can directly affect care delivery.
Wheaton’s career reflects that level of complexity. Before her current system-level post, she served in senior security leadership roles at Henry Ford, Eaton, Meritor, GE Capital, and Ally, building a career that spans privacy, governance, IAM, IT risk, and enterprise transformation. She also brings board-level engagement and broad global leadership experience, which helps explain why she stands out in a state where cybersecurity increasingly overlaps with critical infrastructure and regulated services. In Michigan, she represents the kind of executive who can move fluently between cyber strategy, risk governance, and real-world operational impact.
Kristie Pfosi — Global Chief Information Security Officer, Marelli
Kristie Pfosi is a major name in Michigan’s automotive cybersecurity landscape. As Global Chief Information Security Officer at Marelli, she leads IT, OT, and product cybersecurity for a global Tier 1 supplier with tens of thousands of employees and a massive international footprint. That scope alone makes her notable, but what makes her especially compelling for this Michigan feature is her deep experience at the intersection of vehicle systems, embedded security, product resilience, and enterprise cyber leadership.
Pfosi has built much of her career inside the automotive and industrial ecosystem. Before Marelli, she held senior security leadership roles at Delta Faucet, Aptiv, and Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America, with a strong emphasis on product cybersecurity, vulnerability management, incident response, and security-by-design. Her background makes her particularly relevant in Michigan, where the future of cybersecurity is closely tied to connected products, automotive software, and industrial resilience. She adds real depth to this feature because she reflects a major evolution in the CISO role: not just protecting corporate systems, but helping secure the products themselves.
Michigan’s Expanding Influence in Cybersecurity Leadership
Taken together, the women in this Michigan feature show just how broad cybersecurity leadership in the state has become. This is a bench that now includes enterprise CISOs, product-security leaders, privacy executives, public-sector veterans, and operators who understand how to secure everything from healthcare systems and consumer brands to automotive suppliers and global manufacturing networks. Michigan is no longer just a legacy industrial hub with cyber talent on the side. It is a serious center of security leadership where cyber strategy increasingly shapes business continuity, product trust, compliance, and long-term competitiveness.
For more profiles like this, explore CISO Whisperer’s Women’s Month features and the broader CISOs to Watch collection.